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losing daughter to paternal grandparents

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AidoyBaske

Junior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? new york/Pennsylvania


my wife has been going to court trying to get custody of her daughter(11yrs old at the time). the father was found to be mentally and physically abusing her in Oct 2008.
she was not notified of this because the grandmother and the father said they had no idea where my wife was. my wife was not a big part of her daughters life cause they didn't want my wife to be apart of her daughters life, so for the previous 5 yrs or so my wife had no contact with her daughter.

some back story
The father would not answer the phone if he knew it was her and if he did answer he wouldn't let my wife speak to her daughter, and the grandmother wouldn't give any information on where they lived or phone number when they changed it.
we didn't have the money to go to court and do all the travel it would take(they live in Philly and we live by Buffalo new york). i still feel bad that i couldn't make enough money at the time to help her, but i tried to help as much as i could and she tried often to contact her daughter. If i knew some of the things i know now we would have done things differently.
the reason the father had the daughter is because when my wife tried to leave the grandmother grabbed the daughter and locked themselves in a bedroom. the police were called and they wouldn't let my wife leave with her daughter, my wife originally lived in upstate pa about 6hrs away witch is where she was going back to.
hopefully that's enough back story to understand where we are coming from, now back to the current issue.

well since Oct 2008 we have been traveling to Philly every 4 months. after the first hearing it became a reunification case between my wife and her daughter and it was planned that she would end up with her. after about a year all the case workers where changed but the same plan was in effect. we have been doing everything asked of us and we still are.
in march of 2010 DHS court ordered to start the interstate compact, but when we went back in July they have yet to start it witch delayed everything and part of the problem we have now. it has not gone through yet as i type this. the reunification was still the plan.
my wife's daughter has been placed with the paternal grandparents through the whole thing, who before this happened didn't have any contact with her for 2 years either. witch we had no idea. for the last 2 years her daughter has been saying she wants to live with us.
well we just got back from another hearing on January 4, and everything has been turned upside down. the week before the hearing my wife"s daughter changed her mind and stated she wanted to stay with the grandparents, and to top it off we ended up with a new judge because of some conflict of interest, witch we were not completely told what conflict.
the new judge is no longer going with the reunification and started a PLC for the grandparents, witch the way we were told is the case is about to be closed and they are not going to place her with us and that we are going to have to now go to court for custody with the grandparents.

so my question is can they do this i mean just not place my wife's daughter with us all of a sudden and make us go through a custody battle with the grandparents. also is there anything else we can do cause it seems no one will listen to us, dhs ccs, and whom ever else is involved its like they don't care. the grandmother is bad and that another whole story in itself. and where can we go to get help with very little money. we are trying to find other help witch is how i found this site.

sorry for the long post but there is so much to tellWhat is the name of your state (only U.S. law)?
 


AidoyBaske

Junior Member
she has a public defender right now and the public defender acts like there isn't much she can do, so we have been trying to talk to other attorneys since we have been back.
 

Proserpina

Senior Member
she has a public defender right now and the public defender acts like there isn't much she can do, so we have been trying to talk to other attorneys since we have been back.


Seriously - the situation is far too complex for a message board (even one as wonderful as this).

She NEEDS competent legal counsel.
 

Ohiogal

Queen Bee
If an ICPC has NOT been completed (and there is a LIMITED amount of time for a case to go on) then custody can NOT be transferred out of state during a juvenile case.
 

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